Tenrou, Sanakou, and Axl had just finished a practice free-for-all match with their pokémon and, as usual, Terry had stepped down to be fair after besting both her opponents. Between Tenrou and Sanakou it was a much more even battle though. Mina was a good fighter, but so was Napoleon, Sanakou's Prinplup. In the end, they called a draw when Axl informed them that Will was coming around. They quickly patched up their scrapes and began to walk over to where Will still lay against the trunk of a tree with both of his pokémon asleep and laying against him. He had just begun to regain consciousness, and was still shaking off the drowsiness.

He had barely woken up when everyone reached where he lay against the trunk of a shady tree. His two pokémon, Ralts and Poochyena, were also just recovering from their rest, and so the three of them were still rather groggy as the group met up with them. "Hey guys" Will smiled, "What's up?"

Axl, Sanakou, and Tenrou were all a little surprised to hear Will so upbeat after what had happened earlier, but Tenrou was the first to overcome this and replied. "Well, we've been training a bit while you... napped" He paused, as he was pretty sure it was too insensitive to say 'while you were out dead-cold.'

"Yep, we did a bit of sparring between the three of us, but we were waiting for you to try a 2-on-2 battle." Sanakou explained. "Tenrou and I were good, but neither of us is a match for Axl-" she shot a furtive glance at him as she said this. "So he and Terry did their own thing for the most part."

Axl moved closer to Will and knelt down so he was at Will's eye-level. "You feeling up to it right now, or do you want a little more time to recover?" he asked. He seemed to understand that going through something so exhausting could be deceptively easy to overcome.

Will looked at the group, and then at Ralts and Poochyena, who were still acting half-asleep, and thought for a moment. "Well, I think I need a little more time to wake up, and it definitely seems like these two do." He looked at his pokémon; Ralts was trying to stand, but hadn't quite regained her balance, and so was supporting herself on Poochyena, who was himself still asleep. "Hey," he said "Why don't you guys start practicing now, and when we're ready here we'll go over to join you." They all agreed, so Axl and Terry, Tenrou and Mina, and Sanakou and Napoleon headed back out to the open meadow while Will stayed back with Ralts and Poochyena.

Once the others had started warming up again, both Will and Ralts had managed to fully awaken, and both were standing up without wobbling around anymore. Poochyena, on the other hand, was still perfectly content to remain asleep where he had lain down, and hadn't even been disturbed by all the commotion around him. Will could see that the dog wasn't waking up quite yet, so he sat back down to wait, and Ralts happily jumped into his lap as he did.

He looked out at his friends in the meadow, and sighed; it was nice to have a group of close companions you could count on. He looked down at his two newest friends as well; Ralts was contentedly lying against him, watching the others as well, and Poochyena was now lying on his side, twitching in his sleep at some dream he must have been having. Will then remembered something he had been meaning to talk to Ralts about before the morning's events threw him off-course.

"Ralts," he said. She looked up at him in response. "You know, we've been partners now for over a month, but we still haven't come up with anything to call you other than just 'Ralts.'" He went on, "I mean, if that's fine with you, then we can just keep it up, but it seems too... impersonal, given what we've already been through together. I think we should give you a proper name; it only seems fitting, doesn't it?"

She thought about it for a moment, and said, She paused for a moment.

"Well," Will hesitated, "I had already put a little thought into it, and I think the name 'Mayumi' suits you. It's a traditional name that means 'pure of heart' and I think it suits you." He finished his train of thought, and then waited for her response.

She said the name to feel how it flowed, then repeated it. She giggled and clapped her hands at her new name. Will grinned to see her acting so cutely, and hardly noticed when she got up and started dancing around, chanting her new name. She was so excited that she didn't bother to watch where she was going, and accidentally tripped over Poochyena.

she said as she began picking herself up from the ground where Poochyena had been sleeping. The incident had, as one might expect, woke him up, and he shook his head to clear the sleep from his mind. He looked at Mayumi, who was still halfway strewn over his lying body, and gave a toothy, canine grin. They both got up and she emphatically told himChapter End Notes:I was waiting for this one for a looong time- I just couldn't get it started right, even though I knew what had to happen. I especially enjoy the end of this chapter, and the action it foreshadows.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON DEC 16, 2008:

Holy crap, it's an update!

You'd be surprised how long I had this *almost* finished, but I just couldn't be satisfied with it. I just got it looking good, after nearly a week of having it nearly complete.

In other news, I'm getting a bit frustrated with the HTML text input that DA uses. Seriously, how hard would it be to allow us to use a formatted text box for input so we won't have to go back and add HTML tags for bold and italics and whatnot. Meh, I can't be the only one who's frustrated about this, but if nothing's happened about it already, I doubt my own dissent will change much.

About the chapter itself:

I had actually had a name for Mayumi since right after chapter 2, but I knew that I wanted it to be a special occasion of sorts, so i held off on giving her her name.

Other than that, I think this is a pretty bland chapter, but I wanted to work in a battle or two before what's coming up, and I think I did a pretty good job.

I'm going to work straight on through tonight to get a jump on chapter 7, and from here on the story will really get a kick-start, as I think you can guess.

And now for the obligatory copyright notices: Pokemon, and all related characters, etc. (c) GameFreak, Nintendo, The Pokemon Company

Will, Sanakou, Tenrou, and all other characters and situations (c) me (NonaSuomi)